I move my lips to answer, but no sound comes. I wonder sometimes if I have lost something in an integration of me into a larger whole. I wonder if I’m ok with that. I don’t have an answer.

There was a time, in the beginning, when there was definite separation. There was a thick wall. Over time, that wall crumbled and eventually fell. There were many reasons for that, some rather complicated, some more mundane and straightforward.

I think there has been a transfer of freedom to speak, from the one hand to the other. Strangely though, like energy in a chemical reaction, not all of that freedom got transferred – some of it escaped into the ether I guess. I wonder if it really is utterly lost, or if it just hasn’t arrived at its destination yet.

Today is UDoJ’s third blogoversary. Things are so different now than they were then. I have changed, my country has changed, the world has changed.

I don’t know if I’ll ever write here again, or if undertones of my voice will emerge in The Boy‘s. I don’t have answers, but I’m smiling warmly that the anniversary of my birth has not passed unnoticed.

After piecing together a desktop from scavenged parts, much frustration, much swearing, a lesson in customer service to the Microsoft people, more swearing, driver issues, network issues, internet connection issues, more swearing, a threat or two and just a bit more swearing, I have rescued The Lilith Quotient from the depths of the hard drive grave.

I couldn’t have done it without help from our friends from Philly, Diana and Biancs, but I have it.

Now I’m copying a ton of other files, but the novel is safely recovered. I need a drink.

Ok, this is getting long enough that I’m going to have to break it into chapters.-jb

Carolina del Norte wasn’t such a bad place. If one had to be a prisoner in a foreign kingdom, there were certainly worse kingdoms out there, with much worse rulers. I was free to wander as I chose, within the realm and under guard of course, but free to come and go as I pleased. My only other real restriction was that I was required to appear before him when summoned for whatever reason, at any time of day or night. He didn’t call often during the day, so that was a minor inconvenience for the most part. I slept in his bed, so I didn’t have far to go when he called in the night.

Still, it wasn’t home. No matter how well he treated me, no matter how well he fucked me, I was still a prisoner in the end. Long nights of physical pleasure would never fill the hole drilled in my heart by the memories of my frozen homeland. I was born to rule the hinterland, not the warm shores of the land by the sea.

I was out in the rolling hills of the countryside on the day I heard the news about my father. Having decided to bathe in the fresh, clear water of Lake Destiny, I had dismounted my horse, and was just contemplating whether I could swim to the far shore faster than my guards’ horses could race around when they first noticed the messenger at a full gallop coming over a distant hill.

“I suppose that is a summons to appear at court,” I intoned. “Your liege will just have to wait this day until I’ve finished bathing.” I paused and gave my watchers the customary icy stare, waiting futilely for a moment for them to turn their heads. They were new to my detail, but had apparently been forewarned about me. They stared back, unconcerned with my belligerence. They were definitely better prepared than my last detail was on their first day.

“You’ll have to be more specific, Steph. ‘Danger’ doesn’t really help me here.” I wanted to give her the best experience I could, really show off the system, but her reticence was beginning to wear on me.

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

Crap. I really like Steph, but sometimes she’s a huge pain in my ass. I still had to get Rystefn’s holo done, and that project was taking forever, what with the little free time I had to work on it, and with his um.. needs.

“Steph, it’d just be a lot easier for me, and a lot better for you in the end, if you were just frank. You can go anywhere, do anything, be anyone, if you just tell me what to program…”

“Wait. I can be anyone?”

“Sure, why not? I mean, I can’t make you six feet tall without a ton of work, but the computer can do some minor body adjustments. Want to be blonde? Black hair? 18 years old? Whatever. That stuff’s pretty easy to do.”

“Black hair. I want black hair and forever young. Like a vampire.”

“ah, see now we’re getting somewhere. A vampire I can do. What else?”

“Could you do a little something about..”

I smiled. “Sure Steph. Our little secret. Should be ready by Friday, how’s that? Then you’ll have the whole weekend.”